About the author
This Baffled Dance: Amy Leach's "Things That Are"
[caption id="attachment_13495" align="alignright" width="180"] "Things That Are" by Amy Leach.Buy it on Amazon.[/caption] A natural history museum doles out a thick dose of awe. The Texas horned lizard shoots blood from its eyes! There are deer as tiny as terriers! And who would have guessed at so many variations of horns? Swirling and branching and ridging and spiking and looping... mahogany, gold, white, freckl...
Out of My Shell
As she moves through the thin carpet of the five-gallon bucket's leaves, the painted turtle sounds like she has a peg-leg: rustling, scraping, clunking. A sour reptile smell hangs over the bucket. My hands smell sour when I pick the turtle up. I hold her by her sides, my palm becoming a second shell, watching her shut the gates of herself and become both living thing and stone. If I steady my hand, the barricad...
I Have No Opinion
How much time does it take to write articles that engage mainstream contemporary culture in order to both praise and refine that culture? I'm typing into a box right now, WordPress widgets all around. On my right is a big blue “Submit for Review” button that blinks sleepily each time the post auto-saves. How easy it can be to click that button and send these thoughts on their way. But how long should it tak...
Adapting to Adaptations
In 1909, the very first American full-length motion picture lit the screen. The film was part of that beloved and contested genre, the literary adaptation. It was the first of many film versions of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. Did it follow the plot scene by scene? Did it capture the true essence of Hugo’s original? Reviewers didn’t seem to care. In fact, for one reviewer, it was the dog and monkey ...
Truth, Like Poetry
Here I am, writer at the desk, remembering. My memory summons up a homesick afternoon that I must write about, and now the picture appears. There I am, twenty-three, stretched out on the cool hardwood floor of my bedroom like a sad snow angel, listening to... Eels. Electro-Shock Blues. I'm sure of it. I was a hip, sad indie snow angel at twenty-three, wasn't I? And wouldn't the title Electro-Shock Blues perfectly...
Getting Personal
I cartwheel backwards through years, to the porch step where I am sitting beside a friend on a chilly October evening seven years ago. I try to breathe this cold past self alive, but her fingers and feet stay blue and rigid. I know why. I don’t really want her flitting and dancing and shouting in the fullness of true being. If she were anyone but me, I could be kind to her. Laugh at the way she dispenses cliché...
Not Home for the Holidays
I wanted to travel to Pennsylvania to be with my family this Christmas. My family always swaddles the holiday thick with traditions, and I missed those. On Christmas Eve, my mom crushes candy canes for homemade peppermint stick ice cream. That night, my dad sometimes builds a fire on the far side of their pond. The family creaks through frosty grass and takes seats around the fire, reading Luke's gospel and imagining...
